How do I feel about books and reading?

Where do I begin? I'm an English teacher!

I think it is safe to say that I absolutely love books and reading. The only problem is that I'm an English teacher! It is so very sad, but I have little time to read for pleasure during the school year. Case in point--I have three sets of essays to grade right now, but I'm forcing myself to take a break so that I can do my "homework."

My bookshelves are filled with everything from Shakespeare to Star Trek. When we moved a couple of years ago, I forced myself to take many of my books to school for my classroom library. I love to read young adult fiction, and I always claim that it is research for teaching. I need to stay abreast of what's new in YA so I can recommend books to my students, right?! Honestly, I would still read it even if I wasn't a teacher.

One of my favorite YA series is Harry Potter! Although I think HP is still classified as children's lit. by the publisher, I find the themes and writing style far more advanced than that. I'm anxiously counting down the days (literally on my white board at school) until the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I can't believe the series is almost over; it makes me sad. Especially because I think Harry is going to die. I started reading the books in 1999 when I should have been working on my Master's project. I told myself that I would write 20 pages and then read a book; well, I wrote the first 20 pages, read the first book, thought about writing my next 20 pages but opted to read the 2nd book instead, briefly thought about writing...but picked up the 3rd book, didn't even fake that I was going to write and picked the 4th book up in hardback! I was hooked! I eventually finished my 100 page Master's paper, but that's only because there weren't any more HP books for me to read at the time. Since then I have become addicted to HP podcasts and movies, and have read each of the books three to five times. I spoke to my VP today about creating a HP Enlgish elective!

When I was in high school, my husband turned me on to the Dragonlance series. I have an entire bookshelf filled with those novels. I know I should take them to school, but I can't bear to part with them. Believe it or not, kids trash books, lose them, and--if the books are really good--steal them! I'm far too emotionally attached to that series to take the chance. For instance, I named my two cats and a houseplant after characters from those books! That reminds me of a brilliant show I heard on the DragonHearth podcast hosted by author Tracy Hickman. He and Margaret Weis were at Fort Lewis on a book tour last summer, and they met an incredible young man who was injured in Iraq. At the book tour, he credited one of the characters from the novels with saving his life and that of the other soldiers in his charge, because--when he thought death was eminent--he asked himself, "What would Sturm do?" He found the strength to survive from a character in their book, so he gave his Purple Heart and Bronze Star to the authors. It's such an incredible story!

I truly could go on and on, but I must stop here if I'm going to get any school work done tonight. Yet, I can't log off without stating that my all-time favorite author is William Shakespeare! I have read, re-read, studied, discussed, performed, and viewed his plays for years, and I never get tired of them. There is always something new to discover. If I was stranded in a spaceship and was only able to take one book with me, I would choose the Complete Works of William Shakespeare!

Future...where do I go from here?!

I spend a lot of time thinking about the many interests that I have and about my lack of expertise in any of them because they are so varied. As I near 40, I feel like I should be making a plan for the next 40 years of my life. If I'm going to work for another 25 or 30 years, I need to make sure I'm doing something that won't drive me crazy! I can't see being an English teacher for that length of time. Most kids don't enjoy English and society in general seems to be moving away from reading for pleasure. Even business communications seem more tolerant of language inaccuracies. With whole generations being raised in chat rooms and on IMing, I don't hold out a lot of hope for the progression of the English language. I'm tired of seeing chat room abbreviations in homework assignments! Needless to say, this is not what I want to do for the rest of my life. So, I look at my options and wonder where I should go from here.

• Obviously, I can always leave education. I would love to work for a magazine, but that would most likely involve relocation. Thinking about where I live now, I don't really see anything that is better than education.
• All of my dream jobs require relocation or extensive travel. For instance, I've always loved the idea of being an educational director for a theatre company, preferably a Shakespeare company.
• Another dream job would be as a Shakespeare consultant where I would travel to conferences or school districts to teach teachers how to teach Shakespeare through performance. I would also do residencies and help students mount Shakespeare productions.
• If I'm being more realistic, my two main interests are becoming vocationally certified as a CTE teacher and obtaining my National Board Certification. I want to gain my CTE certification as soon as possible, because we have a teacher retiring in the next couple of years. I would love to step into his position. It would also give my video production class state funding immediately, and THAT is a HUGE plus! Once I start teaching CTE, I may decide that I don't want to get my NBC. Of course, the down side to all of this is that I would no longer be teaching Shakespeare, so what would that do to my dream of being a Shakespeare consultant?
• Conversely, if I pursue my Shakespearean interests, will I miss my opportunity to become CTE certified? For instance, I REALLY want to apply for the Shakespeare: Enacting the Text seminar this summer. Although they only choose 15 participants from over 100 applicants, I feel fairly confident that I would be accepted since one of my referees worked with the seminar director last summer! If I do this, that means I can't take summer school for my CTE certification. It's such a conundrum...I really don't want to have to choose between the two.

With all this being said, I haven't even discussed my varied interests outside of school. I want to spend more time on my website, scrapbooking, photography, podcasting, reading, writing...heck, I would even like to strap on a pair of rollerblades once in awhile. Then there are all the things I NEED to do (in addition to grading papers...yuck!): exercise, clean my house, do laundry. Then there are things I SHOULD do: help Neal with weeding, cooking, paying bills. But, when it comes right down to it, I don't get everything done because I'm lazy, spend too much time on the Internet, and watch too many TV shows. At least I don't play WoW anymore!

Well, I'm sure I'll write more about this in the weeks to come, because I need to make a decision soon.